In a Barroom Far Far Away
by Nemo Blank
Summary: Anakin gets himself some professional help...
1. Chapter 1

"I'm really drunk. That's just f-in' wizard." Anakin rested his spinning head on the bar, reveling in the lack of the force. Alcohol drove it away. 

"Are you gonna be okay there, Mister Jedi?" Pete, the barkeep at Blastars Rest, was a little worried. He had never seen such a young Jedi so determined to drown his sorrows before.

"Dunno. Gotta lotta problems." Anakin raised his head, almost ready to fall off the barstool, but not quite there. "Whole lotta problems."

"Yeah, well, lay 'em on me." Pete looked at his other customers, turned on the server droid and then started washing glasses.

"Why would I wanna do that?" Anakin stared at the man, owl eyed.

"Cause I'm a licensed bartender. It's my job." Pete stared solemnly back at the Jedi, wondering if he could pull it off.

"Oh, yeah. Fair enough." Anakin downed another Bantha Piss and hiccoughed for a while. "Man, that's the sht."

"Another?" Pete knew that he should cut the Jedi off, but Jedi were nearly celebrities. No barkeep would dream of eighty-sixing a celebrity.

"Yeah. Hit me again and keep 'em coming." Anakin stared at the bar until another drink was in front of him. "See, I got a girl. Girl problems."

Pete frowned. "I thought the Jedi were all homos."

Anakin choked on his drink and then laughed until he was almost crying. After a time, he settled into giggling. "Maybe some of them. Most of them. But not me, man. I got a thing for-

"No names, please." Pete raised a hand in a gesture of negation. "It's unprofessional."

"Oh." Anakin drank. "Well, see, she's knocked up. They're gonna throw me out of the Jedi if they hear about it."

"Wow." Pete polished a glass, thinking. "Say, what does it pay? Jedi-ing, I mean."

"I get a place to stay, instruction in the Jedi arts and…" Anakin frowned. "Well, I'll get a stipend, if I ever do manage to get knighted."

Pete focused on the most important fact. "How ya gonna pay your tab?" 

"I get a nice little pension from the Naboo Spaceforce for saving the planet." Ani grinned, crookedly. "It covers my expenses."

"Not the Jedi?" Pete was not surprised.

"Not a credit."

"So basically, you work for food," Pete summed up.

"Yeah." Anakin sighed. 

"Pretty hard life. I saw some news footage. Choppin up giant friggin' combat droids, runnin' around gettin' shot at… so why even do it? What are ya, a slave or something?" Pete shrugged. "Lotsa good jobs out there. Especially for a man that's already got a pension and can take time to look for one that suits him."

Anakin stared. It had never really occurred to him before, but he wasn't a slave anymore. No implanted explosive would count down and kill him for being away from the temple. No Master would send the law to drag him back. In his childhood memory, Gi Quon had in effect purchased him and then willed him to Obi Wan. He had never really thought about his freedom in terms of being free to leave when he'd come to the temple. Why would he, at seven years old? All he'd ever known was slavery, and he even had to call them 'Master,' so it was really a no brainer that he would still feel like a slave at heart. Was that why he'd been pissed off at them for as long as he could remember?

"Whoooah. You know, Pete, you're absolutely right. I don't actually have to be a Jedi." 

"There you go." Pete smiled and poured another.

"They're really pissing me off with their crap, too." Anakin gripped his drink. "Don't get angry, Anakin, no attachments, Anakin, don't spit your muraberry pits out of the windows, Anakin… I mean, what the hell! If I'm not angry or attached, why would I ever want to fight anybody in the first place?"

Pete nodded in agreement. "Yeah, and those murraberry pits really stain if you get the juice on your clothes."

"All too true. Thing is, she's going to die unless I do something." Anakin laid his head on the bar.

"What? Your girl? How is she going to die?"

"Childbirth." Anakin sighed. "I saw it in a vision. If I can just develop my force powers, maybe I can stop it."

"Childbirth? What is this, some outer rim dustball? No one dies from childbirth on Corescant anymore." Pete frowned, confused. "The force gives you some sort of special doctor powers, then?"

"No, but- No." Now Anakin was confused. Why had he ever thought that power in the force could stop his wife from dying in childbirth? That was just stupid. Who had suggested it? Oh yeah, Palpantine. Well, what could a politician know about the force? 

Pete frowned. "I think you ought to think about taking her to see a really good obstetrician about this. Do you already have one?"

"She's seen a medical droid, but… no."

"A droid? Droids can't even wait tables right. Hell, man, you'd better get her in to the hospital to see a real doctor."

"I can't. The publicity would be pretty bad if the tabloids found out. I could get thrown out of the Jedi."

"So?" Pete shook his head. "Take it from me, I know about this. Look, I married a very beautiful woman that had a twin sister. I spent the next five years doing it missionary with the wife like it was a chore while I was having a really hot affair with the twin. But the bitch was actually faking me out. It was really her all along, you see, so I finally had to divorce her. Lies just don't work in a relationship, Anakin. You just can't live a lie. It just makes you crazy."

Anakin stared at him, mystified. "Uh, yeah. Okay, Pete, but the thing is, she's a senator."

Pete shrugged. "Oh, well then, no problem. Everyone expects that kind of crap from politicians. No one will care at all."

Anakin shook his head admiringly. "Man, I'm glad I met you, Pete. You're the wisest man I ever knew."

Pete nodded modestly. "All part of the job. Say, I got a question that's been bothering me for years." 

"Shoot. And hit me, too."

Pete grinned and poured. "Look, you guys got them laser swords and can block blaster bolts and all, but why don't people just use grenades or shotguns?" 

Anakin laughed. "Jedi listen to the force, Pete. The force always tells us to run away like hell from grenades and shotguns." 

"Always listen to the force you should. Wise indeed are the ways of the force."

Anakin sprayed his mouthful of liquor. "Master Yoda!" He poked his head over and looked incredulously down at the sodden lump on the floor behind the bar.

"Tells me to drink, the force does, mmmmm? The ceiling to spin, it makes." Yoda's eyes were looking in different directions.

"Is this your frog?" Pete frowned, rubbing Bantha Piss out of his eyes. "He drank a gallon of Spacer's Ruin and I can't get him to leave."

"He's one of the Jedi Masters." Anakin rubbed his head. "Why didn't you tell me that he was back there?"

"Because he's always back there on Fridays, newby." Pete finished wiping his eyes and glared. "Look, I gotta go pour some drinks. Just be sure to take him with you when you go."


	2. Chapter 2

Pete poured a seventy credit shot of Corellian Whiskey into the glass. "Will that be all, sir?" This particular customer was almost a regular now. Though deeply creepy and prone to taking up an entire table by himself, the hooded figure would sit there at the corner table and drink one whiskey every half hour with the regularity of a droid. This would go on for exactly five hours, whereupon the hood would rise and leave with a huge tip, so long as Pete made no attempt to engage in any kind of conversation.

"That's fine. Leave me for now." The hollow hood rose, revealing nothing but blackness beneath as he drank.

"Yes sir." Pete went back to the bar, suppressing a shudder. The hood was creepy as hell and caused people to leave, but he tipped even better than the frog.

The door chime rang and Pete smiled as another regular entered. Anakin! How's the wife? He poured a dram of Blue Ruin, then mixed in the cacao juice, not bothering to ask what the approaching Jedi wanted. Anakin was indifferent to the concoction but they had determined through terrifying experimentation that a Blue Stinger was the only drink that the Jedi's hormonal nightmare of a wife couldn't smell on him.

"Big as a rancor and twice as mean." Anakin sat down at the bar and took a grateful sip of his drink. "She's chewing on my ass every single day, like some kind of... ass chewing thing. Going on even the stupidest Jedi suicide mission is like a beach vacation."

Pete sniggered. "Well, I told you that young love is fleeting."

Anakin hunched, cupping his drink. "Hey, I still love her and all, but, you know, sometimes I just want to have a drink, play a little sabbac, buy some cool stuff without asking her permission. I tell you, she was never like this before she got all fat. Force! I mean pregnant!" Anakin cursed his loose tongue again. He'd vowed not to use certain words anymore. He would rather face fifty heavy droidekas with nothing but a rolled up news-fax than slip and say the 'f' word to Padme ever, ever again.

"Whipped you are, Anakin. Heh heh heh. Deserve it you do. Plumbing the depths of attachment you are. Funny it is." Lying in his usual spot behind the bar, a drunken Yoda poked Pete with his stick. "Hit me again, ugly human."

"Gladly." Pete mixed another Plum Evil and passed it down to the small alien with a professional smile. Yoda was an uncommonly abrasive little frog, but his tips were enormous.

"Aw, he's back there again? That's all I need today." Anakin leaned over the bar and noted the old Jedi Master's eyes looking in separate directions. Sitting back on his stool, Anakin ran a palm down his face. It wasn't even five o'clock yet. From the sodden look of him, Yoda, the lush, had probably started right after the council meeting broke up, well before noon. Anakin scowled. He'd been possessed of the same impulse, but Obi-Wan had ditched his duty, sadistically forcing his reluctant padwan to teach a class of younglings Form III defensive dueling. It was a truly onerous task for Anakin, who had grown up scrapping in the Mos Espa bazaar and was utterly creeped-out by the ultra polite and almost emotionless Jedi kids that the temple raised. The whole thing was crazy. Only a truly sick mind would invent a lightsaber form that was purely defensive, like Form III, and then teach it to kids that had been raised to have almost no sense of self preservation. Anakin vastly preferred the relentless balls-to-the-wall-and-kill-'em-all assault of Form VII, and that's what he'd taught as 'Form Three and a Half' in the training hall today.

Yoda snorted. "Relax, Whipped One, Friday it is. Talk of Force or Jedi poodoo I shall not inflict." Yoda guzzled noisily, then exhaled loudly. "Drunk am I and so much drunker will I become."

"Awesome." Anakin wondered what else he could possibly have to talk about with Yoda. Actually, he mostly came to Blastars Rest to talk with Pete. Anakin never made a move anymore without qualified advice. His last three missions had been planned out on napkins by Pete and a couple of the regulars at the bar. Pete tended to emphasize stealth and personal survival over the more suicidal 'straight down the middle' tactics favored by the Obi-Wan and the Jedi Council.

Pete mixed up a pitcher of stingers and motioned with his eyes toward a table. "Say, Anakin, hate to bring it up, but your tab is really getting up there. Can you pay?"

Anakin sighed. "Padme had Artoo hack my credit account. She keeps track of every single credit I get and every single credit I spend. I don't know what to do about it."

Yoda sniggered.

Pete frowned. "Hmm. That's a tough one. I take it that Queenie knows exactly when you get your pension check?"

"Yeah. She keeps nagging me to invest it too. She has all kinds of financial crap that she wants me to read." Anakin took a morose sip of his drink and plunked a very high denomination universal credit chit down on the bar. "Just let it ride. I don't know what to do about her."

"Just wait till she pops. The kid will distract her and you can ditch the droid as a bodyguard for the kid." Pete picked up the chit and fed it into the bar's point of sale register. "You're paid ahead for a good long time. So where did that come from?"

Anakin shrugged. "A guy I met at work."

Pete nodded, wiping the bar. "Is this like your droid parts business?" Anakin had started picking up some of the more valuable droid parts that he ran across during a mission after Pete had introduced him to another regular, Solly, who had a droid repair business.

"Sort of. Headless Nemodians who are about to be completely blown up anyway don't need universal credit chits. Besides, as my old master used to say, 'To the winner goes the pickings."

"Hit me again you will. On the Whipped One's tab, place it." Yoda struggled up to a sitting position. "Unusual philosophy that is, for a Jedi. Which Master so speaks?"

"Right away, Master Yoda." Pete hesitated over some drain cleaner, then reluctantly selected a bottle of the Plum Shandy that his nephew made. Half a glass of pure grain alcohol, half shandy, one stir and a sprig of loco berry to add some pop and the drink was prepared. No one but Yoda would dare a 'Plum Evil.'

Anakin smirked. "Master Wattoo, back in the day. He was a real philosopher. He also said, 'There is no second winner,' and 'Never give anyone an even break."

"Wise words and true, but not words of the Jedi Order. Fearful we were of your potential to fall to the dark side. Delighted I am that the power of the bottle you have uncorked."

"What do you mean?" Anakin nodded his thanks as Pete poured another stinger.

"To want, attachment leads. To fear, want leads. To anger, fear leads and to the dark side, anger leads," mused Yoda. "Unless to strong drink want leads first. To a sound sleep on the pile of cardboard in the alley, strong drink leads. A problem for the Republic this is not."

Pete was polishing a glass, listening intently. "Wow. That's kind of profound. So do you think I should open up a place by the Jedi temple? As a public service, I mean."

Yoda sighed, deeply saddened by a memory. "To be caught in the bar a Jedi cannot, lest to Deep Flatulence or one of the other agricorp planets the council assign. Closed by the Republic's order some three hundred years ago was Darth Bob's Place, the last Jedi bar, when came to power the Reform Party. To drink well, far from the temple must the Jedi go."

"Those damned dirty no good do-gooding tools!" Pete hated the Reform Party with the heat and focus of a finely tuned turbolaser.

"Hey!" Anakin was a little offended. Padme was one of the Reform Party's legislative whips, or something like that. He had no problem believing it and stayed as far away from the Senate as possible. He never wanted to see her whipping anyone. Politics sounded really violent. It was no surprise that she was so good at it.

"I meant the Jedi council," added Pete, insincerely.

"Oh. Yeah, real bunch of dicks." Anakin poured himself another from the pitcher.

Yoda just sighed again.

Pete nodded in agreement. "Hey, speaking of Padme, how did the visit to the obstetrician go?"

" I almost forgot." Anakin hurriedly downed his drink and poured another. "It's twins, a boy and a girl."

"How can twins there be if one of each there is?" Yoda thought human reproductive practices weird and unpleasant, but the question had to be asked.

"I don't know, that's just what she told me. It never came up in the temple's suicide training." Anakin slammed down another and shuddered, clenching his teeth. "I do know that the boy has a midichlr- a midicr- a force bug count of forty thousand."

Yoda fainted.

"Is that a lot?" Pete gingerly prodded Yoda with a foot, then poured out the half glass of Plum Evil, replacing it to the same level with a less toxic Blue Ruin. There was an art to forensics. "I hope he isn't dead."

Anakin shrugged. "It's no big deal to him if he is. The Jedi don't believe in death, just some kind of poodoo about the force. Speaking of which, my force bug count is ten thousand. Yoda's is eight thousand, and he's the most powerful Jedi master."

"Wow. Well then, to fatherhood." Pete poured a drink and tossed it down.

Anakin followed suit. "Yeah, forty thousand is just crazy. If he's anything like me, he'll probably kill us all the first time he throws a tantrum."

"Fatherhood indeed. Pour me one of whatever it was that Master Yoda was having."

Pete almost choked, then gave the hood a fake smile. The creepy freak had somehow managed to sit down on the stool next to Anakin without being noticed. "Of course, sir. At once."


	3. Chapter 3

Anakin blinked and stared into the dark hood. "Say, do I know you?"

"We may have met at some point. Call me Sid." The hooded man took a glass from Pete and drank. "Smooth."

"I gotta admire any human that can stomach one of Yoda's poisons. The shandy alone is enough to put me away. Anakin Skywalker." Anakin held out a hand.

Sid eyed it for a second and then shook. "I do enjoy a challenge." Sid took a sip of his drink. "Anakin Skywalker. I insist on paying for your drinks, Jedi Skywalker, it's the least I can do."

"Thanks!" Anakin loved drinking free. "Just call me Anakin, Sid. I come here to forget about all that Jedi stuff."

"As you wish." Sid took a drink and put his elbows on the bar. "I imagine that the title of 'The Hero With No Fear' is a tough one to live up to."

"It's just stupid. No fear? Come on! I really hate reporters." Anakin took a sip and munched some bar-nuts, shaking his head. "They're always prying, always trying to write something about me. Like I need the separatists trying to single me out more."

Sid turned sideways to face him, leaning on the bar, drink in hand. "It is fortunate then that none were present to hear your fascinating comments on your unborn son. Did you really say that his midi-chlorian count was forty thousand? That should indeed inspire fear."

Anakin narrowed his eyes. "I wasn't intending to make that information public."

A low chuckle emerged from the hood. "Then you should have more care for who may be lurking about the dark corners of the world. Fear not, young Sith, I shan't breathe a word."

Anakin stared. "Sorry, Sid, but I'm a Jedi. Got the regulation blue light saber and everything."

Sid snorted. "Please, Anakin, you are merely employed as a Jedi. Philosophically, you have nothing in common with them."

Anakin took a drink. "I'll admit, I have my differences with the order, but they're kind of minor. Well, maybe not so minor. I mean, I did get married and all. Yeah, so I completely disagree with the whole attachment thing. And the Jedi code is just demented- 'there is no death, there is the Force.' What does that even mean? It sounds real profound, but chop a guy's melon off and guess what? Hello! Dead guy rotting there. I don't see any Force poodoo involved." Anakin shook his head. "Crap, I need another drink." He poured the last of the pitcher into the glass.

Sid chuckled and drained his glass. "I have always thought that every line of the Jedi code contained a lie. "There is no emotion, there is peace.' I beg to differ. Every time a light saber is ignited in earnest there is plenty of emotion. 'There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.' Well, quite, unless of course you don't actually know the relevant facts or possess any knowledge. The Force rarely bestirs itself to remedy one's deficiency. "

Anakin laughed. "Yeah, and the next one, There is no passion, there is serenity. Well, Sid, let me tell you, when me and Padme get to rocking, there's passion to spare, so that one is out too. And the whole death thing is just moronic. What the order needs is a whole new code. And maybe some kind of wizard Jedi fight song! Just imagine a whole big synchronized battle, with every Jedi singing and killing the bad guys at the exact same time! It'd be kriffin' glorious!"

"Quite." Behind his cowl, Sid rolled his eyes. Musical battles. There was such a thing as wild excess, even in sithly darkness. "Barman, another, and set my young friend up too."

"Right away, sir." Pete, deciding that the hood was right about Anakin, sat fresh drinks on the coasters in front of them and collected the empties.

"Perhaps a different code would be more to your taste." Sid took a drink, noting the slight lemony flavor, then recited;

"Peace is a lie, there is only passion.

Through passion, I gain strength.

Through strength, I gain power.

Through power, I gain victory.

Through victory, my chains are broken.

The Force shall free me."

Anakin blinked. "You know, Sid, that one does seem to make more actual sense. In the real world, I mean. I never had a lot of peace and I get less and less every day."

Pete washed and started polishing the glasses. "Free you from what?"

"What do you mean?" Anakin was feeling a little plowed, not really up to fine logic.

"I mean, yeah, it all tracks perfectly right up until the last line. Then it talks about freedom. What does victory actually free you from?"

Anakin thought about it. He'd won countless fights, but all they had ever really got him was into countless more fights. "I don't even know what victory actually means. I guess the last fight I won paid off my bar tab, so it kind of freed me from debt. For about a week."

"A debt free week is nothing to sneer at in times like these." Pete frowned. "Anakin, you told me about the time you won the Boonta Eve Classic back on that dirtball you came from. That's a victory in anyone's book, so what'd it get you?"

Anakin frowned. "Well, I guess that it freed me from working for Wattoo, but then it lost me my mother and got me fifteen years of working for Obi 'snores like a bantha and smells worse' Kenobi. Ultimately, I guess it got me a wife who really IS a queen and at least one kid that's gonna be able to force-spank me by the age of two. So victory really IS just a treadmill of futility."

"I completely disagree." Sid drained his drink and made a 'round us up' gesture with his empty toward Pete. "A count of forty thousand midi-chlorians? Do not deceive yourself, Anakin, your son could do it from where he is right now."

"Don't remind me." Anakin drank deep. "So basically, slogans are all so much poodoo and freedom is pretty much an illusion."

"So there's your answer." Pete sat down two more drinks. "Bust out of one set of chains and you're instantly caught by the next."

"But a good booze up lets you slip out of them for a while." Anakin toasted Pete. "To the precious miracle of alcohol and the illusion of freedom."

Sid, slumped in depression, lifted his glass. "I shall certainly drink to that"

Yoda struggled up and raised his glass. "To booze!" He took a gulp and immediately sprayed it back out. "Not mine is this drink!"

The door to the bar slammed open and an imposing figure, heavily armed and battle armored strode in, helmet swiveling to identify the patrons. Ominously, it halted on the Jedi.

Anakin, Sid and Pete all turned to watch the stranger approach.

"Taken was my drink!" Yoda, ignoring the suddenly tense atmosphere of the bar, poked Pete's leg with his stick. "Recompense I demand!"

"Anakin Skywalker." The armored being was not asking, simply stating the name with some satisfaction.

"What? You aren't a droid, are you?" Anakin couldn't help but wonder if his work had followed him home.

"Padme says its time to come home." A blue stun blast hit Anakin right between the eyes, causing him to fall convulsing to the floor.

The blaster rose to cover Sid and Pete. "Am I going to have to stun anyone else?"

"He heh. Whipped!" came from behind the bar.

Pete put his hands on the bar. "I never interfere in the disputes of a married couple."

Sid just raised his glass. "Not my business."

"Wise." The blaster was clipped back into its holster and the armored figure effortlessly hoisted Anakin onto its shoulder.

Sid drained his drink and spoke. "Say, aren't you Jango Fett, the bounty hunter?"

Settling Anakin's unconscious bulk, Fett paused, surprised that anyone knew him. He rarely operated in the Core. "I am."

"So what kind of bounty did she put on him?" Pete was interested.

"A large one. It's easy money." With that, Jango turned on his heel and hauled his bounty away to place it firmly into the loving arms of its wife. He did not envy the Jedi's fate, as a stun blast, a hangover and a screeching harridan did not mix well.

"Well shit," said Pete, pouring himself a drink.

"Poor fool." Sid threw a high denomination note onto the bar and left.


End file.
